


thick & thin

by pyrites



Series: hand in hand [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Autistic Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Bisexual Georgie Barker, Bisexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Butch Georgie Barker, EDS Jon, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Harassment, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Jon Sims Bi Pride January 2021, Light Angst, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Canon, TL;DR - Jon is very impulsive but everyone here is ride or die.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28700640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrites/pseuds/pyrites
Summary: (He’d trusted somebody, once, with his life. His body, his friendship, himself.When had that become so hard?)ii.solidarity
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: hand in hand [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095512
Comments: 23
Kudos: 73
Collections: GerryTitan verse, bi jon sims celebration





	thick & thin

**Author's Note:**

> second installment of a series of fics for the [jon sims bi pride event!](https://jonsimsbipride.tumblr.com/) read the first to understand context.
> 
> **CWs in the end notes!**

───── ✿ ─────

Seven months worth of a relationship, and they never did get around to naming the damn thing. Thirteen years has turned the white limbs of the stuffie tired and grey, but its unsettling eyes remain just as bleak and soulless as they were when Tina passed it into Jon’s hands like a bouquet of roses. 

Come to think of it, hadn’t Luis— right, yes, he did. For Jon’s seventeenth birthday, he’d looked up different flower shops in the area to schedule a delivery to his front door. Lilacs, for first love.

The distance didn’t work, in the end. School starting to get more intensive, the clash of timezones and international phone call fees, a general lack of satisfaction. They never got to hold hands, or kiss, or smile at each other outside of photos they took elsewhere, apart. It wasn't empty because they didn't care, but they couldn't touch each other. It started to hurt. It was hard to be so lonely.

Not that Jon had ever been _so_ eager to touch and be touched that he couldn't survive without it. He could. He did, he does.

And it’s not as if he _never_ had positive physical contact. Dadima never expected him to grow out of his meltdown routine; the day he left for university, he'd finally given in to panic for the change in a lifelong routine. She held him like she always did when he couldn't stop himself from shaking on his own, and it only made him miss her more when he finally got to his dorm building and broke down again, then with no one to calm his nerves but a weighted blanket. It wasn’t until later that he found someone there willing to touch him in all the ways nobody ever had before, in only the ways that he wanted. Ways that made him feel brand new.

Jon sets the terrible stuffie down on the mattress. Reaching back into the box, his fingers skim over different textures until he finds something cool to the touch.

───── ✿ ─────

“I cannot believe you _did that.”_

“Please, _shut up.”_

“Who knew you had it in you! George, did you know he had that in him?”

“He said _shut up,_ Lee.”

Jon hissed as Georgie shifted the cloth against his swollen cheek, pins and needles springing back into his eyes all over again. The cloth was starting to lose its chill, but he didn’t want to tell her to get up and wet it with fresh cold water. The only thing that kept him from reverting back to rocking and trembling was Georgie’s weight against his hip where she sat on the edge of the couch to lean over him, even as her hand stayed scant and careful by his face.

“It was _brave,_ Jon,” Alma said. She was dabbing the blood on Leo’s knuckles, kneeling at the armchair beside her legs. “You did an amazing thing.”

“I did violence,” Jon corrected her miserably. “I did _injury_ unto _myself.”_

“To protect your butch,” Alma fired back, but so, so gently. “It’s the stuff of old stories.”

Jon scoffed, his throat still cotton and novocain. Georgie lowered the cloth from his cheek to check the strap of his sling. He kept his eyes on the ceiling, and said nothing as she traced her palm painlessly from shoulder to elbow. It was his wrist he’d destroyed, every small joint in his fingers still throbbing with the force of collision with an actual human person’s nose.

“I cannot believe I _did that.”_

“That’s what _I_ said.”

No anger in Leo’s voice. Only agreement. She’d gotten all of her rage out before. Alma could only hold her back for so long before she set her loose like a racehorse from its starting gate. The two of them were perhaps the fiercest friends Jon has ever been lucky enough to have. Even when Alma held Leo back from reacting, it was never because she didn’t think something needed to be done — it was only because she thought the timing had to be right.

Of course, when a man that aggressive started closing in on the only person in their coterie that could make a solid case for being entirely made out of tissue paper, perfect timing went out the window. Not that Jon had been his first target. He was just the first person to throw a punch.

_(Jon supposes he can’t judge Tim’s instincts too harshly, then. Even if only one of their opponents was full of worms.)_

Georgie had kept her cool, of course. Jon couldn’t understand it at the time; how could she not be angry at that man, at what he was saying? How could she _not_ feel threatened by the way he tried to box her in against the wall to spout his vitriol, to make himself bigger than her, stronger than she could let herself be without taking the fall for whatever happened after? She’d just stared at him, blank and restrained — shut down, as she so often did, even when it wasn't for survival’s sake. Lamb’s blood on the door.

Jon couldn’t understand. He’d stayed crowded by her arm, clutching it with both hands until she pushed him away and backed up further. Why? Why would she _do_ that?

To protect him, of course, if it came to blows. He knew that. He was thinner than she was, more fragile, despite the battery he survived just from trying to navigate through the day in a hostile environment. Even the way a door opens could feel hostile to him, on a bad bone day. On a bad muscle day, even just the short distance to the bathroom from their bed felt like walking on hot spikes, absorbing every pain that would branch from where they sank into the soles of his feet. Of course Georgie wouldn’t want him caught in the crossfire if that man decided to get physical. Of course she anticipated it.

In the end, it wasn’t up to him. Jon could not believe he _did that._

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled to Georgie, his face turned against the back of the couch.

“What for?” she asked. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“He only— Because of me, if I hadn’t been with you then he wouldn’t have even _thought_ to—” 

“Hang on,” she interrupted. “First of all, I catch plenty of shit even when you’re not around. You know guys like that always find a reason.”

Jon winced and squirmed to face her. “But he said—”

“You think I give a damn about _anything_ he had to say?” Georgie’s fingers curled around his better ones, emphatic and clear. “Are you really going to sit here and hold yourself to _his_ standard of what makes a ‘real man?’ Come on, now.”

He frowned down at their hands, even as he tightens his grip on hers. “…What I don’t understand is why it _matters.”_

Not to her; to them. To anyone. Why should it matter how effeminate he is, why would that mean Georgie couldn’t ever really love him? That he could never really love her? That they were both just some — cover, some lie, for feelings they were ashamed of? As if they were compensating for what they _really_ wanted, and could never be for each other?

Georgie hadn’t been ashamed of herself since meeting Leo, putting a new song to her swagger. The question of whether she could be a bisexual butch was only one she asked herself when she was going through the list of questions to expect from other people who didn’t know her. When _Jon_ asked her — as if he would get her into some kind of trouble, if he was worth the interrogation — she hadn’t looked at him like he was pulling worries out of thin air, or like he was stupid. She’d just sat him down and told him plainly that anyone who tried to make her choose _one_ of the two things that make her feel _this alive_ is not someone she would choose over either of those things.

That, and any made-up Butch/Femme Council™ that could broadly delegate what bisexuals could do with their labels and relationships paled in comparison to the butches and femmes they personally knew who would — as evidenced by tonight — fight like hell for them both.

“It _doesn’t_ matter,” Leo spat from across the room. “G-d, I’m glad I got to clobber that sorry son of a bitch.”

“It was something else, alright.” Alma moved the ice pack from the back of Leo’s hand to press her lips there, just shy of her stiff fingers. “Very sexy. Honestly.”

Leo’s entire face softened with a split-lip smile, even if she was smart enough to keep her fingers unbent and idle. “I think _you_ could have taken all three of them, way you were swingin’ that handbag.”

Alma wrinkled her nose. “I should have been faster with the mace.”

“You were scared.” Leo lifted her hand to nudge the cold back of it against the edge of Alma’s jaw. “And you were amazing. We all came out the other side, right? Everybody’s all in one piece, more or less.”

Jon’s stomach twisted with guilt anyway. He curled in on himself as much as Georgie’s shape against his hips would let him, peering past Alma’s head to see the damage she was tending to. Leo’s knuckles were a sore red, but the blood on them hadn’t been hers; that was still on her face in dried smudges. She had a bag of frozen peas pinned between her shoulder and the back of the armchair, nursing a bruise from being slammed into a dumpster in the alley they’d ended up tumbling into. She was built bigger than the man, and just a smidgen closer to sober, but he had been out drinking with friends.

“Do you think we’ll be banned from the premises?” Jon asked. He hated the idea of losing them one of their favorite places to go together. It was one of the only bars with an atmosphere that didn’t smother him.

Alma shook her head. “Not a chance. I had to run inside for help, you know, to tell someone what happened so _they_ didn’t spout nonsense about who started it. Roderick actually came outside himself with one of the bouncers.”

“The _bartender?”_

“Glad to see you remember who he is.” Georgie gentled Jon’s hair back from his forehead, mindful of the split arch of his eyebrow. She wasn’t smiling, still altogether quiet. “No memory loss or anything. That’s good.”

“I didn’t hit my head _that_ hard,” Jon muttered, turning his face away from the shame of telling such a blatant lie.

“It was downright cartoonish, Jon.” Georgie sat back to unfold and refold the cloth in her hands. “It sounded like an anvil falling on Wile E. Coyote.”

Jon would have turned to completely face the back of the couch would it not have put so much pressure on all the parts of him that throbbed and ached and protested. Georgie reacted swiftly when the hurt washed over his face, her fingertips cool on his bare forearm.

_(She never pushed him. Not once.)_

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I am _not_ making fun of you. Do you hear me? I might not look it, but I’ve actually been swooning this whole time.”

“Yeah, _okay.”_

_“I’ve_ been bloody swooning,” Leo interjected, laughing. “You were so snappy about it! Just _pop!_ I _blinked_ and everyone just looked so confused. It was like hearing a toddler say _‘fuck’_ for the first time and not knowing where they picked it up from.”

Alma and Georgie laughed along with her, much to Jon’s dismay. It was hard to feel proud of something that drew blood, that hurt so much, that made such a mess for people he cared about. Haunted, he rubbed his hand over the side of his face that didn’t feel like an overfull balloon.

“I have no idea what came over me.”

“Panic and adrenaline?” Georgie suggested. “He got right in your face, Jon. It was self-defense.”

“I mean _before_ that.”

Alma cut in with a short laugh. “Righteous fury?”

“…Alright, maybe a little.” He hadn’t exactly _listened_ when Georgie pushed him away. 

For all of Alma’s careful calculations about _when_ to act in situations like this, Jon lacked her patience and rationality. It only took one more jeering comment before he’d reached for the man’s elbow to pull as hard as he could and redirect his attention away from Georgie, with no plan as to what to do when he got it. All he could do was stumble back as the man rounded on him, until the only thought in his head was a split-second of euphoria upon feeling that he’d planted his feet at _just_ the right stance to give him some stability. The rest of his body filled in the blanks before his better judgment could catch up.

There was nothing cosmic about the way the world stopped. Jon could hear the sound of cars passing behind them, the chirrup of a cricket somewhere, but the way the man yelped in pain, the voice itself was distorted. He caught a glimpse of shock from his friends before all he could see was the back of Leo’s leather jacket — hand painted with the words _RIGHT TO RIOT_ — and then Georgie was hauling him down the street. He could only keep his eyes on Leo for so long as her shape was lost in a grapple of overlapping bodies crowding the mouth of the alley before he had to turn around and run, but the moment he staggered to face forward, his weight tipped too far from the anchor of Georgie’s hand around his wrist.

To have successfully sucker punched someone only to be swung face-first into a lamppost was more humiliating than he could wrap his head around. His glasses snapped at the bridge.

“How am I even going to _explain_ this to anyone?” he moaned. “I can’t tell the truth, I can’t. And if any of you suggest an _eyepatch,_ I’ll never forgive you.”

Georgie slowly lowered her hand from where she’d been fiddling with his earring, silent with self-reproach. Her hand settled at the dip of his side, a motionless weight as she looked to Leo and Alma for ideas that didn’t involve making pirate jokes. Alma sat back on her heels as Leo rose from her chair with a hiss, stretching her legs before crossing over to take a knee in front of Jon’s space on the couch.

“Here.” Leo plucked her aviators from where she’d hung them from the dip in her v-neck, unfolding the stems. Jon lifted his wobbling chin when she jutted hers in indication, pouting still even as she placed the glasses carefully on his face.

“No eyepatch. Just cover up the mess with these. I dropped them before, so there’s a scratch here.” He winced as she tapped the left lens with a gentle finger, instinctive. “Now you’ve got a trophy from your first proper barroom brawl!”

“We were _outside_ the bar.”

“You bloodied the guy’s nose like a champ.”

“And demolished my entire hand in the process.”

Leo waved the argument away. “War wounds.”

“Most of which from colliding with a _post.”_

“Tactical retreat!” She beamed at him and clapped her hand over his jaw. His eyes burned again as her fingertips skimmed the smarting edge of his cheekbone, but maybe more so from the affection welling up in his chest.

He’d only ever seen her pat Georgie’s cheek like that before. He understood then, all at once, why it always made Georgie smile so brightly after her.

“But next time, leave your thumb on the _outside_ of your fist.” Leo picked up his uninjured hand to curl his fingers for him, gripping it firmly in approval when he got it right. “Atta boy.”

Leo moved to stand up again only to halt in her tracks, clearing stars out of her eyes with a hard blink. Jon and Georgie both reached for her arms in tandem, confusing her for a moment before she laughed at them again, brushing them off.

“Awesome,” she assessed. “I am doing wonderful and also fine.”

Alma came to stand behind her, hands settling on her shoulders to tug her back against her legs. “Come to the bathroom with me. We’ll check your head in better light.”

With a tipsy thumbs up, Leo let Alma and Georgie heft her back to her feet. Jon reasoned that her euphoria would fade with her adrenaline, and she’d be just as mopey and miserable as he was in short order. Some part of him was impatient for her to stop looking so happy and really admit exactly how terrifying this all was. He took off the aviators and set them on the edge of the couch, feeling rather silly for them now that the whole touching exchange was over.

Georgie sat back down in the half-circle of how Jon had bent around her, watching the two of them go until the living room was quiet again. Jon watched her profile in the long moment it took for her to face him again, hoping for — some kind of expression, some fissure crack in her stone. None yet.

No crack. Just a softening, the same sort as Leo’s. Alma’s. His.

“Thank you.” She touched his jaw where Leo had given him that pat — all these patterns, all this mimicry of love, a cycle he couldn’t believe he was a part of — but only with the pads of her fingers. “For sticking up for me.”

Any reply he could have mustered lodged firmly in his throat and silenced him instead. She bent forward to kiss him and he stayed perfectly still, until his fingers curled in the front of her shirt to keep her from pulling away.

“Wait,” he said, regrettably damp and small. “Can— Don’t stop just yet, could we just—?”

Another degree of softening in her eyes. Another stroke of her thumb by the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, Jon. Of course.”

It took some maneuvering. Jon struggled to sit up against the arm of the couch so that she could fit an arm around his waist and press closer, every wince and reminder of what brought them here just threatening his composure all over again. He’d been unable to keep from crying before at the blinding shock of impact, even as he forced himself to keep moving. Georgie had helped him go step by step through the meltdown when they finally got home — deep pressure, water, lie down — until Leo and Alma shambled their way back to the apartment. But he wasn’t used to being in this much pain, being _this scared_ for these reasons, and there was almost too much conflict to process.

It was overwhelming to feel so much at once; pain, the honest truth of real terror passed, the dread in knowing how much worse something could have been. Whole-hearted adoration, deep admiration — trust.

_(He’d trusted somebody, once, with his life. His body, his friendship, himself._

_When had that become so hard?)_

What Jon knew for certain was that he wanted was to be held. He wanted one long moment where nothing was happening to him but a real, uninterrupted kiss from someone that loved him. Positive touch, welcome and safe.

And Georgie indulged that want, for a while. He sniffed as she sat back again, hazily tilting his head into her open hand. Her eyes bounced between the different points of his face in evaluation, one corner of her mouth downturned.

“We _do_ need to go to A&E, though.” Defeat brought him down to slump against her shoulder, groan of relief cut with a hiss as her chin bumped his cheek.

“Oh, thank _G-d._ Please.”

───── ✿ ─────

**Author's Note:**

> **CWs: violence; injury; harassment; one heck of a weird fist fight; referenced autistic meltdown; georgie's terminus disorder**
> 
> real love and friendship is just an endless chain of "oh this is happening? i will defend my friend" and everyone just collectively forgets the hospital exists.
> 
> for this prompt, i wanted to write something about solidarity between communities, and outline where they overlap! leo and alma are butch/femme lesbians, who i first introduced in [breathing like i never did](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22839256/chapters/54585805), my butch georgie fic! they also appeared in chapter 7 of [two ships passing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22189123/chapters/52974727), as a big part of jon's self discovery journey in uni, too. at the end of the day, we're a lot stronger together.
> 
> [[jon sims bi pride tumblr](http://jonsimsbipride.tumblr.com/)] | [[my tumblr](http://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/)] | [[ GTCU masterpost](https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/14KlgPfOb16ocGj8k0QrElw6UY0SqoNeH2yTj_zQ31bA/edit#)]


End file.
